Cadet Col. Mici Cummings receives her certificate of completion for the 2016 Air Force Space Command Familiarization Course from then-Maj. Don Ells, now a lieutenant colonel, who served as the activity director. Looking on are Air Force Col. Eric Boe, second from left, a former Civil Air Patrol cadet and current CAP senior member who piloted Space Shuttle Endeavour in 2008 and Space Shuttle Discovery in 2011, and Air Force Col. Sammy Pierce, former vice commander of CAP-USAF.

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14

December

2017

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10:40 PM

America/Chicago

Calling All Cadets: 'Tis the Season

It’s Time to Apply for Academic, Flight Scholarships

Each spring, Civil Air Patrol provides academic and flight scholarships to deserving cadets. Besides helping to fund cadets at summer activities and encampments, CAP offers scholarships to help cover the costs for learning to fly — either through attendance at a CAP flight academy or for instruction to advance toward a flight rating — and for pursuing higher education, whether in college or at a trade school.

CAP cadets are eligible for over $350,000 in awards, but applicants must sign up now — before the Dec. 31 deadline.

“Civil Air Patrol believes in our cadets and is dedicated to making a sound investment in their future,” said Wendy Hamilton, program manager for National Cadet Special Activities, or NCSAs. “Many of our cadets attribute their successes in life to what they learned in CAP.

“These scholarships help perpetuate that process, helping to train our youth to be the leaders of tomorrow.”

To learn more about CAP’s academic and flight scholarship or to get started, visit the cadet program’s Scholarship Home Page.

Scholarship recipients will be announced in March.

Tower tour

As part of the Air Force Space Command Familiarization Course, Cummings and other cadets got a chance to tour the facilities at Cape Canaveral in Florida, which included the space center’s famous launch pad towers.

Last year, CAP’s cadet scholarship program donors helped the cadet program nearly double its number of scholarship recipients, from 46 in 2016 to 90 in 2017, representing 36 of the 52 CAP wings.

One of those recipients was Cadet Col. Mici Cummings, a member of the Virginia Wing’s Leesburg Composite Squadron, who received a $1,900 academic scholarship.

Cummings is attending her first semester at the University of Virginia, where she is majoring in aerospace engineering. “I am grateful for the CAP scholarship, because there are so few merit-based scholarships available,” she said, adding the scholarship was particularly meaningful to her because she chose her major as a result of attending the Air Force Space Command Familiarization Course, one of about 50 NCSAs, in 2016.

“In my opinion, one of the best aspects of Civil Air Patrol is the opportunity to attend NCSAs, because they allow cadets to learn leadership skills and explore various career options,” Cummings said. “Prior to attending AFSPC-FC, I was unsure of what I wanted to study in college.

“If not for CAP and this NCSA, it is unlikely that I would have discovered aerospace as a career option,” she said.